Monday, August 6

Slept late, until around 8 a.m. Did a treadmill session and resistance band exercises after breakfast. While I was doing this, Hubbie accompanied Mother to our house, and the two of them peeled and sliced peaches for the freezer.

Once I was ready for the day, I reviewed the lesson for today's session with my ESL student. Did this and that around the house after that until lunchtime.

After lunch, Mother peeled and quartered onions to be included with a pork roast, and then she headed for the couch for a nap. Hubbie peeled potatoes, and I seasoned the meat with pepper, paprika, now-salt seasoning, garlic powder, and thyme, browned it, and put it in the slow cooker. Topped the meat with Rosemary, added the onions, some carrots, and the potatoes, and a can each of low-sodium chicken broth and beef broth.

Before I went to the college to meet my student, Hubbie ran errands, including picking up a few groceries.

Met my student at 2:30, as usual. Her tooth is still bothering her, but she couldn't get an appointment until August 22. Actually, she could have gotten one for August 20 at 2 p.m., but she refused to accept a date that interferred with our class time.

The first thing she did today was give back the half pint jar that had contained homemade strawberry preserves. She was enthusiastic in her praise of the preserves, which her husband and mother-in-law loved (as did she).

Today's lesson included comparative of adjectives: "Mary is 20. Jane is 18. Jane is younger than Mary." Comparisons included the words older, cheaper, sadder, larger, darker, good/better, bad/worse, little/less, far/farther, etc.

The lesson also included focus on "think" or "say" plus noun clauses: "I think that he is a fine person." "Ellen said that Tom died in his sleep."

I also read a paragraph so that she could practice listening comprehension, and then she read stories from her workbook. One story involved the death of a person on a Friday, with a funeral scheduled for the following Monday. She seemed surprised that so long a time elapsed between death and the funeral.

In Venezuela, a person is buried within twenty-four hours of death. I explained that in America, many arrangements must be made, including choosing a casket, setting a visitation time, gathering memorial materials, choosing music, etc., and sometimes family have to travel long distances to attend. Also, if a person dies on Friday, it is customary in some churches...Catholic, for instance...to wait until Monday for the funeral.

She also wanted to know how to refer to a woman who has lost her husband, and I explained that it is "widow" for a woman, and "widower" for a man. In Spanish, it is "viuda" for a woman and "viudo" for a man.

Another discussion was related to the cost of food in the U.S. Although we Americans don't like the rising costs, the student commented that it is less expensive here than in Venezuela or other parts of the world. And what she enjoys most is the great variety and bounty of foods here, a thing we Americans take for granted and fail to appreciate.

We ended our session on the dot of 4:30, but I guess the librarians feared we were never going to leave, so one of them came back to the study room to remind us of the summer hours. I'll have to remember next week to end the session a few minutes earlier.

Back home, Hubbie had turned the slow cooker to the "keep warm" setting, so the roast was ready to eat. I made gravy from the drippings and another can of chicken broth, and was ready to serve the meal at 5 p.m. It was delicious, with a side of individual cups of applesauce.

Afterward, I accompanied Mother to her house, and then Hubbie and I watched TV, including a couple more "Mystery Woman" movies from the Hallmark Movie Channel.